


It’s a Sibling Thing

by BabyGenius



Category: Batman - All Media Types, White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Family, Family Reveal, Gen, Humor, Neal Caffrey is Tim Drake, No Beta We Die Like Joker Should Have, Office finds out about Tim’s family, RIP, Tim Drake is Neal Caffrey, and like robins, but poor peter, guys this was fun, pls i still don’t know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:14:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyGenius/pseuds/BabyGenius
Summary: “You wouldn’t get it, it’s a sibling thing.”Andohhow Neal had to bite his tongue at that. Of course, they probably thought he was an only child. That was a funny thought.——Or: The white collar office is under the impression Neal is an only child. This is so far from the truth it’s not even in the same galaxy.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 267





	It’s a Sibling Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back at it again with another one shot when I should be working on either of my multichaps but I am not. I have a huge analysis essay due tonight that I’m going to work on after I publish this, but I hope you all enjoy!

It started like this:

One of the agents, Agent Paterson, scoffed jokingly at Neal and said, “You wouldn’t get it, it’s a sibling thing.”

And _oh_ how Neal had to bite his tongue at that. Of course, they probably thought he was an only child. That was a funny thought.

The conversation continued, and no one knew how hard Neal had to work to stop himself from saying something.

——

It was one of his calls to the manor, where the rest of the family was meeting for their weekly dinner (which he couldn’t make on account of a certain piece of ankle jewelry).

“—And then they said I wouldn’t get it because it was ‘a sibling thing!’” Tim cried, throwing a hand up in the air.

There were varying levels of amusement, and Jason openly guffawed.

“As if you have no siblings,” Stephanie cackled. The screen full of people was evidence enough, even if a few (like Steph and Barbara) weren’t strictly siblings.

——

For a few weeks, that was that. It was a humorous thing for Neal to recall and scoff about, grinning to himself at the inside joke.

They were in a meeting, and Neal’s phone _would not_ stop going off. He had forgotten to mute it before the meeting, and even then since it was a repeat call it would have rang anyway.

Finally, Peter stopped the debrief, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “Why don’t you get that? Put it on speaker, since it’s so important.”

Neal couldn’t help but think this was like one of those moments in the classroom where the teacher insisted you tell them what you and your friends were talking about that was so funny. He grimaced, taking out his phone and answering, not before seeing the caller ID of _Dick_. Great.

“ _Hey Timmy! B wanted me to let you know that if you don’t get some sleep tonight he’ll lock you out of the servers_ ,” Dick greeted cheerfully.

Tim gasped, ignoring the curious looks of everyone else. This could not stand. “What? No! He can’t do that!”

Dick laughed over the line. “ _I think you’ll find he can. Come on, bro, you need sleep. Otherwise I’m sending Jason over_.”

Tim squawked. “Don’t do that! Not necessary! I’ll be fine!”

“Who is that?” Peter asked finally, causing Tim to look up.

“ _I’m his older brother,” Dick said. “Who’s that? That your boss little bird?_ ”

“Yeah, that’s Peter,” Tim said.

“You have a brother?” Diana said, surprised.

Dick cackled. “A _brother. That’s gold. I’ve gotta go, Tim, but I mean it. I hear that you haven’t been sleeping and I’ll come over there with Jason to make you sleep. Bye, love you!_ ” The line clicked.

Tim sighed, palming his face in exasperation.

The next five minutes were spent dodging questions before they focused back on the debrief. Neal could tell from the look in Peter’s eyes that he wouldn’t forget it, though.

——

Jason came stomping into the office not even two weeks later, a scowl on his face.

“I’ve been sleeping!” Tim swore, holding his hands up.

Jason got a confused look on his face before the look of realization and snorted. “Not here about that, baby bird.”

Tim put his hands down. “Oh. Then what are you here for?” He asked suspiciously.

“Needed one of your files and you weren’t responding to my messages.”

Sure enough, Tim checked his phone and saw ten unread messages. He looked up with a completely straight face. “My phone didn’t think you were important enough to let me know.” He heard muffled laughter from behind him, but didn’t pay attention.

“That’s a load of bullshit and you know it. You were just hyperfocused on something. Either that or you haven’t had caffeine today. Have you finally cut back?”

Tim gasped dramatically. “ _Never_. I couldn’t do that. We have such a special bond.”

“Yeah, okay. Anyway, I’m staying for dinner, so don’t be late.”

“You don’t even know where my files are!” Tim called after Jason’s retreating back smugly.

His response was a middle finger in the air.

“Love you too!” Tim yelled, laughing as a second middle finger joined the first.

“Friend of yours?” Peter asked dryly.

Neal cocked his head, considering his answer for a second. “My brother.”

“That didn’t sound like the one on the phone,” Jones pointed out.

“Other brother.” Neal shrugged.

“You have two?” Diana asked, moving her eyes from the now empty outside entryway to Neal.

Neal snorted, trying and failing to hide his laughter. “Yeah. _Two._ ”

——

They were out on the streets the next time, running after a suspect. The four of them had split up, and they all arrived just in time to see a deceptively small girl trip the man they were running after, sending him sprawling with a groan. She looked up at the four agents approaching her, and her eyes settled on Neal before her face lit up with a grin.

“Little brother!” She cried, running forward and pulling him into a hug.

Tim shook his head and hugged her back before letting go. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting lunch.” Cass shrugged. She noticed their audience. “Friends?”

Tim nodded. “These are my friends. That’s Peter, Diana, and Jones.”

Cass greeted them with a small wave. “Hello!”

Jones looked up from where he was cuffing the still dazed man and smiled back in greeting.

“You have a sister too?” Peter said frustratedly.

“Yep.”

——

“You don’t have any other siblings, right?” Peter asked one day. “Just the three older ones?”

Neal snorted but said nothing, simply looking down to continue his paperwork.

Honestly, Peter couldn’t tell whether to take that as a yes or no, and now he was just more frustrated.

——

There was something to be said for the confusion one feels when they walk into the office and see a child (teenager) sitting in their CI’s chair.

“Don’t tell me this is another one,” Peter sighed, looking over to Neal.

“Caffrey,” the child greeted coolly.

“Demon brat,” Neal returned. Peter was startled to hear the same cool tone in Neal’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Father is missing and I require your assistance to find him.”

“That’s something you should take to the police, kid,” Jones pointed out.

“ _Tt_ , you would think so,” the kid scoffed.

“Dames, be nice,” Neal chided.

“I thought you had no more siblings,” Peter bemoaned. Neal’s father must have been very busy, he thought.

Neal laughed before focusing back on Damian. “How long?”

“One day.”

“Is O helping you?”

Peter very much wanted to know who this ‘O’ was.

“She is. However, she has told me that she requires your assistance.”

Neal waved at Damian to get off the chair, taking his place and pulling a tablet and keyboard out from somewhere.

“Where—” Diana started, then cut herself off with a shake of her head.

“I didn’t know you were any good with computers, Neal,” Peter said. Neal’s fingers were moving at lightning speed as his eyes scanned the screen in front of him.

Neal shrugged, not pausing in his typing. “Just a hobby.”

Peter’s mouth dropped open in disbelief but he said nothing, only shook his head.

“I’ve sent Oracle the coordinates. She’s sending double B to go get him,” Neal said, putting away his tablet and offering a small smile to Damian.

“Thank you, Caffrey,” Damian sniffed. He stood up, lingering a second longer before striding out of the office.

“So you’re not the youngest?” Agent Paterson asked.

Neal shook his head. “Nah. I’m in the middle.”

“Am I going to get to meet the others?” Peter asked, only somewhat sarcastic.

Neal shook his head and shrugged. “With my luck, probably.”

——

Neal was not having any fun in the van.

This was changed by a few sharp raps on the back doors. Everyone tensed. Not that Neal thought the van was particularly subtle, but it was an unspoken rule of crooks that they pretended it was.

Still, Peter held up a hand, cautiously opening the nearest door. He was swiftly but gently pushed back as a girl with thick blonde hair clambered in, drink carriers in hand. “Hi!”

The agents remained frozen, but Tim snickered and groaned.

“Who are you?” Jones asked warily.

The girl waved her hand. “You can call me Annie. I brought you guys coffee.”

Neal reached forward and grabbed the one he knew was for him.

“ _Neal!_ ” Diana hissed.

Neal waved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine.” He promptly chugged half the cup, making a small face at it. “This isn’t caffeinated.”

“Yes it is!” Stephanie insisted. “Just not to your usual amount. We’re trying to stop you from poisoning yourself.”

Neal pointed a finger. “This is slander, I do no such thing.”

“You know her?” Peter asked.

“Yep! He does,” Stephanie confirmed.

Peter seemed hesitant to say what he wanted to, but continued on anyway. “Is this…another sibling?”

Neal sputtered, trying not to spill coffee from his lips while Stephanie made a noise of disgust. “Ew no. More like…..the weird cousin? She hasn’t quite been adopted yet, is the thing, because she still has her parents.”

“Adopted?” Jones repeated.

“Well yeah. I don’t have any siblings by blood, but that’s not what matters. Thanks for the coffee, even if it is weak.”

Diana took an unclaimed cup carefully, taking a small sip. “This isn’t weak, Neal.”

“You would think so,” was all Neal said.

“Neal here has a ridiculous caffeine addiction,” Stephanie said solemnly.

“It is not that ridiculous,” Neal protested. Stephanie raised a single skeptical eyebrow, no words needing to be said.

Peter had not noticed any sort of caffeine addiction, but, looking back on things, he was very shocked that he hadn’t because it was quite obvious now.

“Anyway, I’ll be off. Ta ta for now!” Stephanie grinned setting the rest of the coffees down before leaping out of the van and disappearing.

“So that wasn’t another sibling, which is good, because I don’t think I can handle you having anymore,” Peter sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before taking a sip of the coffee left behind, his eyes widening in appreciation.

“Weeelllllll…….” Neal hedged, shrugging innocently at Peter’s exasperated look.

“Your parent has more than _five_ children?” Jones asked, eyebrows up high.

“He has a bit of a problem,” Neal shrugged, not saying anything else on the matter.

——

“So are we ever going to meet the _other_ siblings?”

“There’s only one more, for now,” Neal said. “And you might.”

“ _For now?_ ”

——

The day _had_ been going normally, but that was before a young, dark-skinned teenager sprinted into the office, his eyes wide as he dove behind Neal’s desk. The office quieted, what little conversation there had been coming to a complete stop.

“Hide me,” the kid begged.

Neal looked at the kid and then at the doors, where a woman in her mid-thirties came storming in. “Where is he?”

The office tensed, confused as to why a woman was looking for the boy.

“Hey auntie Kate,” Neal greeted.

The woman—Kate—turned her stormy view on Neal and Peter prepared himself for a confrontation, but within the next second her eyes softened almost imperceptibly. “Kid. You seen Duke?”

“What’d he do?” Neal asked cautiously.

“Let’s just say it involved a wig, glitter, a screwdriver, and strawberry jelly,” Kate growled.

Neal furrowed his brows in confusion before shrugging. “Well, Duke isn’t here.”

Indeed, when Peter looked behind Neal’s chair, the kid was nowhere to be found.

Kate narrowed her eyes suspiciously before turning around and striding out. Neal watched her go, smirking and asking thin air, “You wanna tell me what that was about?”

Peter gaped when the kid shimmered into existence, but he was the only one that could see. The kid stood up, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“It…wasn’t my fault?”

Neal snorted. “Mhmm.”

“It wasn’t! Steph framed me. Although the jelly part…that was me.”

“The glitter does seem in-keeping with Steph’s M.O.,” Neal admitted.

“Who’s that, Caffrey?” Diana asked, motioning to the kid.

“My younger brother Duke.”

At this point, Peter wasn’t even that surprised.

Jones seemed almost hesitant to ask the next question. “You don’t have anymore, do you?”

“He said he only had one more,” Agent Blake pointed out.

“Yeah but he followed that up with ‘for now’,” Jones retorted, turning back to Neal and raising an eyebrow.

Duke answered for him. “No, I’m the most recent.” He turned to Neal, hugging him quickly and slightly stiffly before waving and rushing out the door.

——

It was not necessarily common to be hacked in the middle of a debrief. Peter paused in his rundown, staring at the screen as it pixelated and then faded to black, a single open eye symbol appearing in the middle of the screen.

“Neal, go call the cyber crimes division.”

“ _That won’t be necessary_.” The computer-modulated voice was impossible to differentiate between male or female, young or old.

Peter wasn’t expecting Neal to groan and facepalm. “Hey, O,” he called.

The nickname—or name, whatever it was—rung a bell.

“ _Neal. I’ve contacted you all to tell you to stay away from this case_.”

“Why?” Diana challenged, her eyes glittering.

“ _It’s a Justice League case. You risk ruining months of work if you continue, and this isn’t the kind of thing that lends itself to a joint operation_.”

“What does the Justice League want with a couple of jewel thieves?” Jones asked.

“ _That’s classified. We’ll let you know once everything has been taken care of, as a courtesy_.”

Peter snorted at that before saying, “I’d rather you not hack us again.”

“They can contact me and I’ll let you know,” Neal volunteered.

“And how do you know them?” Diana asked, raising an eyebrow.

“ _Also classified_.”

The eye disappeared and the case file that had been up on the screen originally was gone. Peter’s eyebrows were furrowed as he leaned against the conference table, the beginnings of an idea forming in his head. Eventually, he slowly asked, “That…wasn’t another sibling, was it?”

Neal froze, a second passing before he burst into deep laughter, shaking his head. “No,” he got out. “Not another sibling. Just a really close family friend.”

“I don’t know if that’s much better,” Peter sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in consternation.

Neal shrugged unapologetically.

——

“I just realized,” Agent Paterson interrupted the silence of the office. “Didn’t I insinuate months ago that Neal had no siblings?”

Neal smirked as the rest of the office realized the truth to Paterson’s statement. “You did. I almost made my tongue bleed from how hard I had to bite it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Diana asked.

“Where would be the fun in that?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Kudos? They keep me going and thriving and I appreciate them very much and am not above begging, I will have you know. I hope you all are continuing to stay safe, even though it seems like things are getting better we need to continue practicing safe health guidelines in order to keep it that way. 
> 
> Anyway, as always you can come yell at me on my tumblr, blerghfish, or there’s a discord now! It’s all really cool and we yell about white collar/batman crossovers all day while coming up with ideas and helping people’s writing. Go check out CheetahLeopard2’s series White Collar/Batman fics to get the link!


End file.
